Cory Doctorow and John Kessel [broadcast 2017-04-24] — UTOPIAN FUTURES! Both Doctorow (Walkaway, Tor Books) and Kessel (The Moon and the Other, Saga Press) posit quasi-utopian futures stemming from responses to our current socio-economic-political climate. In Doctorow’s Walkaway, this comes in the form of literally “walking away” en masse from modern society and setting up new forms of living in the blighted post-industrial wildernesses. In Kessel’s novel, this comes in the form of the creation of colonies on the moon, with various structures and cultures, including his “Society of Cousins”, where women hold nearly all political power. Doctorow joins co-hosts Mur Lafferty and Samuel Montgomery-Blinn via phone, ahead of his now ongoing book tour which brings him to Chapel Hill’s Flyleaf Books on Friday, May 5, before we are joined in studio by Kessel at around the 24 minute mark for a good amount of overlap between our guests. Enjoy!

Joe M. McDermott and Mur Lafferty [broadcast 2017-01-30] — CLONES! CLONES! CLONES! We featured co-host Mur Lafferty’s new Orbit Books novel Six Wakes, a murder mystery set on a spaceship, and guest Joe M. McDermott (via phone) whose just-out Tor.com Publishing book The Fortress at the End of Time sees a cloned soldier in a remote outpost coming to grips with his really quite awful situation. We talked about clones, space travel, writing, the Stonecoast MFA program, and more.

Ursula Vernon [broadcast 2016-12-19] — Pittsboro author Ursula Vernon and co-hosts Mur Lafferty and Samuel Montgomery-Blinn in studio to talk about the year in books, games, comics, movies, and more. The “more” included surviving the apocalypse, potatoes, soil, and yet more. Enjoy! And see folks out at illogiCon this weekend!

Brent Winter [broadcast 2016-11-26] — Carrboro author Brent Winter joined host Samuel Montgomery-Blinn in studio to talk about his debut novel Blood Family, a “literary occult thriller” which “explores themes of familial bonds, the weight of the past, and the elusiveness of truth in a world where each level of reality conceals a deeper one beneath it.”

Brent Winter in studio at WCOM-FM in Carrboro.

[Production note: Huge, huge thanks to Michael Graziano at Thread Audio for salvaging what was a fairly disastrous podcast recording.]

Rysa Walker [broadcast 2016-10-17] — Cary author Rysa Walker joined co-hosts Mur Lafferty and Samuel Montgomery-Blinn in studio to talk about her new book The Delphi Effect, the first in a new series from the author of the ABNA winning and bestselling CHRONOS Files, that series also being the basis of a new comic book series The Chronos Files: Time Trial.

This month, on THE CRIME SCENE, we are privileged to have S.W. Lauden guest host the show. S.W. Lauden’s short fiction has been published by Out of the Gutter, Criminal Element, Shotgun Honey and Crimespree Magazine—among many others.His short story, “Customer,” will be featured in the upcoming anthology, WAITING TO BE FORGOTTEN: STORIES OF CRIME AND HEARTBREAK INSPIRED BY THE REPLACEMENTS (Gutter Books—Oct. 15, 2016).His debut novel, BAD CITIZEN CORPORATION, features the adventures of a Southern California punk rock cop named Greg Salem. The second novel in that series, GRIZZLY SEASON, will be published October 11, 2016.

Naomi Hirahara, born and raised in Southern California, is the Edgar Award-winning author of the Mas Arai mystery series, which features a Japanese American gardener and atomic-bomb survivor who solves crimes (SUMMER OF THE BIG BACHI, GASA-GASA GIRL, SNAKESKIN SHAMISEN, BLOOD HINA and STRAWBERRY YELLOW). Books in this series have been translated into Japanese, Korean and French (September 2015 publication date).
MURDER ON BAMBOO LANE, her new mystery series with a female twentysomething LAPD bicycle cop, was released with Berkley Prime Crime in spring 2014. Her next in the series, A GRAVE ON GRAND AVENUE, was released in April 2015.
For more information, go to her website, www.naomihirahara.com.

Rob Hart is the author of New Yorked, nominated for an Anthony Award for Best First Novel, as well as City of Rose and the upcoming South Village.
He’s also the publisher/COO at MysteriousPress.com and the class director at LitReactor.
Rob’s short stories have appeared in Shotgun Honey, Crime Factory, All Due Respect, Thuglit, Needle, Kwik Krimes, Helix Literary Magazine, and Joyland. He’s received both a Derringer Award nomination and honorable mention in The Best American Mystery Stories 2015. Non-fiction articles have been featured at LitReactor, Salon, The Daily Beast, Mulholland Books, Criminal Element, The Literary Hub, Electric Literature, the Powell’s bookstore blog, and Nailed.South Village, the third entry in the Ash McKenna series, will be out in October 2016, followed by a fourth book in summer 2017. He’s also co-writing a novella with James Patterson as part of theBookShots program.

The music in this episode is from THE MISSION CREEPS, whose album FRIGHT NIGHT FREAK OUT was just released.

This month The Crime Scene talks about crime fiction anthologies with three guys who know what they’re talking about. James R. Tuck who edited the outlaw country crime fiction anthology MAMA TRIED, Tommy Pluck, who edited PROTECTORS 2, and Joe Clifford who edited TROUBLE IN THE HEARTLAND.

Sabaa Tahir and Renée Ahdieh [broadcast 2016-09-05] — San Francisco author Sabaa Tahir (in studio) and North Carolina author Renée Ahdieh (via phone) discuss their latest young adult fantasy novels, A Torch Against the Night and The Rose and the Dagger, ahead of their joint appearance at Raleigh’s Quail Ridge Books on Tuesday, September 6. For some background on Tahir and Ahdieh and their books, see my article in this week’s Indy Week.

John Claude Bemis [broadcast 2016-08-08] — Hillsborough author John Claude Bemis joined co-hosts Mur Lafferty and Samuel Montgomery-Blinn in studio to talk about The Wooden Prince, the first in his new Out of Abaton series which re-casts the story of Pinocchio in a Steampunk/alchemical/magical Venetian Empire. We also talked about his Clockwork Dark trilogy for young readers, his background in teaching, and his time as the Piedmont Laureate.